Marketing Tools – Conditional Content (per block and per message)

If you are using conditional content in your broadcast, and you want to target profiles, you MUST choose Legacy queries for your audience building.

If you are using ‘Segments’ for your conditional content, you should choose ‘My segments’.

In the Marketing Tools, it is possible to add conditional content, which are based on Profiles or Segments, to:

1. a Block within a message

2. an entire Message within a Broadcast, known as an “Audience Segment”

A reminder about Profiles

Profiles are the key to conditional content. A Profile uses filters to look at supporter data and their transactions (activity) so you can build one for donors, activists and so on. They can then be attached to blocks within a message when building it, or to an entire message.

About segments

Segments are a robust and dynamic tool for categorising supporters and building lists within your organisation’s file. Taking elements from the legacy Query Builder and Profiles tools, Segments are a powerful new way to view and analyse your organization’s data.

Adding conditional Blocks

You can see the blocks in your message when editing it. Once selected, a blue border appears like the one below:

Open

The icon on the left allows you to add conditionality to that block.

Adding conditionality to a block

Once clicked a “Manage Conditional Content for Selected Block” window appears:

You’ll see a Fallback profile there by default, which means it will show for the audience if they don’t belong in the profiles or segments you add. To add a new profile or segment, search for it in the “Add a profile” box and click the orange + button.

In this example, we’ve added the “Major Gifts Profile” and the “Activist Profile”, and switched them On. You can also see that in the background, the (1), (2) and (F) circles appear, which relate to the profiles (and fallback) versions of that block. Click Done to return to editing your email.

Switching profiles or segments on a block

Once you’ve added the profiles to the block, circles will appear in the left border of the selected block. Click on each to switch the version of that block for that profile. You can also do this via the drop-down at the top right.

Changing content for each profile or segment

Initially, each profile will have the same content as the original (Fallback). Once you’ve selected the profile that you want different content for, just simply edit the text or other attributes of the block (e.g. image URL) via the right-hand Content area. It will now have different content to the Fallback.

Adding conditions to other blocks

The profile conditions you add only applies to that block. To add others, click onto other blocks and follow the same steps. The profiles you added previously will show but need to switched “On” to be enabled. You can add other profiles as well, if you don’t want to use the ones currently added.

Prioritising block conditions

It is possible that a supporter is in more than one Profile. You can determine which one is the priority by clicking on “Manage Conditional Content” under “Settings” in the email builder. Just drag and drop. The top (1) profile will be the priority, so if it shares supporters in the second (2) profile, they will get the first version, and not the second version.

Removing profiles from a block or from a message

You can switch profiles “Off” if you no longer want the profile to show different content for that Block.

You can delete profiles by going to “Manage Conditional Content” under “Settings” in the email builder and clicking the (x) icon.

Adding conditional messages (Audience Segments)

You can also add “Segments” to messages from the Message stage of the broadcast. Under the Core message, you will see “Audience Segments”. The word ‘segment’ can now refer to a section of your audience, and also the email that they will receive. Note that the Core Message is essentially your Fallback message. If a supporter in the general audience does not meet the criteria for any of the audience segments, they will receive the Core message.

Click “Add a Segment” to create a different message version. This will show you a screen listing your Profiles or audience Segments. Select the profile you want and it will ask you if you want your version to be based on a template or an existing message (e.g, your Core message)

Editing audience segments

Once you have selected, it will bring you to the Message builder, where you can make your changes for that segment. Save the message and once done you will see the segment within your Message stage. The Core message shows at the top, and the new segment at the bottom. These can then be individually edited by hovering over the message and clicking Edit.

Prioritising audience segments

It is possible that a supporter is in more than one Profile or segment. You can determine which message is the priority by hovering over the message in the Message stage, and clicking the Move icon to drag it into a different order.

The first (left-most) message is the priority. This segment will be the priority, so if it shares supporters in the second segment, they will get the first version, and not the second version.

Deleting audience segments

To delete the entire message for the audience segment, hover over the message in the Message stage, and click the Delete icon.

Testing conditional messages

The testing stage shows you the different segments for your message. Each message in the list represents the different segments you have made – the Core is first, followed by the segments. 

You can send the test and switch on or off the ones you want to test. 

To test conditional blocks, select “Send all variations of conditional content” and several emails will be sent to you showing the different versions.

Sending conditional messages

Continue to the Sending stage as usual to send your message